As the World Burns Around Us
by SubtlyFailing
Summary: They were in the midst of the flaming ruins of a once proud city, with enemies all around them. But they'd had each other. They had kept each other sane. That is, until the unthinkable happens. Traught friendship.


**Title:** **As the World Burns Around Us**

**Rating:** T

**Character(s):** Dick, Artemis, mentions of others.

**Word Count:** 1 067

**Summary:** They were in the midst of the flaming ruins of a once proud city, with enemies all around them. But they'd had each other. That is, until the unthinkable happens. Traught friendship.

**Author's Notes:** The outline of this was written before Endgame came and ruined all of our sanity.

**As the World Burns Around Us**

They were in the midst of the flaming ruins of a once proud city, with enemies all around them. But they'd had each other. With death and destruction surrounding them, one had been the only thing that had kept the other sane.

Until the unthinkable, yet very likely event, happened.

"_Artemis!" _

He'd seen it all in slow motion; he had known before the words left his lips that the warning had come too late. He could clearly see the knife of her opponent cut through the padding of her uniform and rip into her chest. She cried out and stumbled back, her face bearing an expression of shock and terror at the same time.

He caught her before she fell.

Nightwing felt his heart beat double-speed; a horrid sensation of déjà vu washed over him as the blonde-haired archer grew limp in his arms.

"_I've got you"._

Laying her down, he instinctively applied pressure to the gushing wound above her chest. Batman had trained him for situations like these; he knew what to do so thoroughly that he could probably do it in his sleep. S_o why were his hands shaking so hard? _

Maybe it was because this time, Artemis's wails of pain were not an act, her fading heartbeat was not caused by a pill she had bit down beforehand, and the blood gushing from her chest, covering both her own uniform, and his, was real.

"_Stay with me Arty_," he mutters, meaning to sound reassuring, but not being able to keep his rising panic from bleeding into his voice. _"It's going to be fine, just stay with me, help is on the way"._

It was a lie, of course. His team had become scattered within the first few weeks of the invasion. They had lost Kaldur in the initial attack. Ever the capable soldier, the atlantean hero had given his life to destroy an important enemy base.

Jaime and Bart had been the next to go. They had died together, taking with them a number of generals leading the invading army. Nightwing had made sure they were buried next to each other.

At some point that Nightwing could not pinpoint in the haze and the multitude of the bloody battles, they had all become separated. With the exception of Artemis, Dick had seen none of his team for a long, long time.

He wanted to believe that they were all okay, fighting the invasion in their own way somewhere. But in the back of his mind, he knew that that wasn't the case.

Artemis coughed, sputtering on blood that landed in droplets on her ashen face, trailing down her cheeks and creating a morbid pattern on the pale skin.

Still, she smiled.

"_You seem distraught," _

Her voice was strained and Nightwing knew she was biting back cries of pain to spare him the trauma. She coughed again, sputtering a new mouthful of blood that coated her face. Nightwing laughed at her words, it was a hollow, mirthless laugh. 

The words came with memories of simpler days. Back when they had all been mere children. When their biggest worries had been school, and girls and if their friends would accept their true selves. Long before their first thought in the morning was the question if more heroes had fallen during the night.

"_Look at you Arty; of course I'm distraught," _he told her, applying stronger pressure to her chestwound. Artemis winced and let out a pained groan, yet her smile never wavered, "_you know, a wise little troll of a hero once told me to get traught-" _ she coughed again, hacking up new droplets of blood, "-_or get dead". _Dick smiled at her, despite himself. Leave it to Artemis to turn a desperate situation into a reminiscing session.

They had shared so many jokes over the years. Held so much trust in each other. They'd had each other's back until the end, always leaning on each other and keeping each other standing. Even after they'd both lost so much_._

The life in Artemis's eyes was the only thing that had kept him going during the last few months. 

But now, the life was slowly draining from those familiar gray orbs. His hands were too small to stop the blood from gushing out of her body and pool on the ground beneath her. Nightwing felt his stomach churn and the bile rise in his throat as he was forced to face the horrible realization.

Artemis wouldn't make it.

"_Dick," _Artemis said, in a rasping voice. She lifted a bloodied hand and rested it upon his cheek. All he could think of was just how cold her hand was. "_Dick, you need to let me go". _

Those last words made his stomach flip, and his eyes fill with repressed tears. "_NO, NO Art! You're going to survive! You need to pull through! You… you"_

He choked.

"_You can't leave me alone." _

Artemis's smile never left her face, but her eyes were filled with tears as well. Her expression was something of a mix between pity and sadness. "_I'm never going to leave you alone," _she whispered, running her hand through his raven hair.

"_Don't worry; you're going to be fine"._

Then she was gone. The hand she had rested on his face fell to the ground, splashing unceremoniously in the blood that had formed a red pool around the two heroes. All life had ebbed out of her beautiful grey eyes, though they still stared at him. Dead and unseeing. Looking at them made him want to throw up, and he gently closed them with two fingers.

Carefully, he lifted her into an embrace, and let himself weep like a child.

They were in the midst of the flaming ruins of a city, with enemies all around them. Now, two had become one. Artemis's body was a sinking ship on the bloodied ground. Dick held her close and tried to remember simpler days.


End file.
